Upgrading to a new major version

Requirements for upgrading to newer PostgreSQL major version from PostgreSQL v12

If you have pg_repack installed, you need to remove it before performing the upgrade. This can be done with a command like:

DROP EXTENSION pg_repack; 

After upgrading, reinstall pg_repack. This can be done with the following command:

CREATE EXTENSION pg_repack;

If you are using PostGIS, you must upgrade to PostGIS 3.3 before upgrading. This can be done by running the following against a database with PostGIS installed.

SELECT * FROM update_to_postgis_33();

Upgrading from a read-only replica

Upgrade by configuring a read-only replica. Provision a read-only replica with the same database version as your deployment and wait while it replicates all of your data. When your deployment and its replica are synced, promote and upgrade the read-only replica to a full, stand-alone deployment running the new version of the database. To perform the upgrade and promotion step, use a POST request to the /deployments/{id}/remotes/promotion endpoint with the version that you want to upgrade to in the body of the request.

This request looks like:

curl -X POST \
  https://api.{region}.databases.cloud.ibm.com/v5/ibm/deployments/{id}/remotes/promotion \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <>'  \
 -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
 -d '{
    "promotion": {
        "version": "14",
        "skip_initial_backup": false
    }
}' \

skip_initial_backup is optional. If set to true, the new deployment does not take an initial backup when the promotion completes. Your new deployment is available in a shorter amount of time, at the expense of not being backed up until the next automatic backup is run, or you take an on-demand backup.

Back up and restore upgrade

You can upgrade your database version by restoring a backup of your data into a new deployment that is running the new database version.

ibmcloud resource service-instance-create <DEPLOYMENT_NAME_OR_CRN> <SERVICE_ID> <SERVICE_PLAN_ID> <REGION>

ibmcloud resource service-instance-create example-upgrade databases-for-postgresql standard us-south \
-p \ '{
  "backup_id": "crn:v1:bluemix:public:databases-for-postgresql:us-south:a/54e8ffe85dcedf470db5b5ee6ac4a8d8:1b8f53db-fc2d-4e24-8470-f82b15c71717:backup:06392e97-df90-46d8-98e8-cb67e9e0a8e6",
  "version":14
}'

curl -X POST \
  https://resource-controller.cloud.ibm.com/v2/resource_instances \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <>' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -d '{
    "name": "my-instance",
    "target": "bluemix-us-south",
    "resource_group": "5g9f447903254bb58972a2f3f5a4c711",
    "resource_plan_id": "databases-for-postgresql-standard",
    "backup_id": "crn:v1:bluemix:public:databases-for-postgresql:us-south:a/54e8ffe85dcedf470db5b5ee6ac4a8d8:1b8f53db-fc2d-4e24-8470-f82b15c71717:backup:06392e97-df90-46d8-98e8-cb67e9e0a8e6",
    "version":14
  }'

curl -X POST \
  https://api.{region}.databases.cloud.ibm.com/v5/ibm/deployments/{id}/remotes/promotion \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <>'  \
 -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
 -d '{
    "promotion": {
        "version": "14",
        "skip_initial_backup": false,
        "dry_run": true
    }
}' \

Forced upgrade

After the end-of-life date, all active Databases for PostgreSQL deployments on the deprecated version will be forcibly upgraded to the next supported version. For example, PostgreSQL Version 12 (deprecated) upgraes to Version 13.

Upgrade before the end-of-life date to avoid the following risks:

• No SLAs are provided for this type of forced upgrade.
• You may experience some data loss.
• Your application may experience downtime.
• Your application may stop working if it has any incompatibilities with the new version.
• You cannot control the timing of when this upgrade will happen for your deployment.
• There is no rollback process for this forced upgrade.

For the end-of-life dates, refer to the version policy page.

Changelog for major PostgreSQL versions

• PostgreSQL 12
• PostgreSQL 13
• PostgreSQL 14
• PostgreSQL 15
• PostgreSQL 16